


Definitely, Completely and Absolutely Platonic

by fade_into_the_dusk_with_me



Category: The X-Files
Genre: (just to be clear. they dont sleep together. well they do. but only in the most literal sense), F/M, Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Sharing a Bed, THEYRE IN LOVE YOUR HONOUR, Um., and you can tell, i guess, im new to this. dont judge me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fade_into_the_dusk_with_me/pseuds/fade_into_the_dusk_with_me
Summary: i wrote something in here but im an idiot and closed the tab and im NOT using my brain to think up another thing to say, soooo.reader beware: i wrote this when everyone else was asleep and my back was killing and i had watched too many episodes of x-files. i am also posting this when i am tired, which means this may be a very. very. bad idea. idk. i guess this might as well happen. (set after no particular case - just a thing from my head)
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, Mulder/Scully, msr - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Definitely, Completely and Absolutely Platonic

**Author's Note:**

> im scared of getting stuck in a rut of oneshots, cos i really would love my brain to be able to write multi-chapter fics, but i am in no way in control of that thing.  
> sorry if its really ooc - i write late at night, ok? also, ew speech - i can go for pages without anyone speaking so pls bear with me whilst i try and think of how human beings interact. (also, what on eArth is that title??)  
> oh, p.s. im british, so when i say 'chips' i mean like fries. also, woah, the tenses in this are a little screwed up. does it still make sense? i hope so.

It had been dark for several hours. The moon held its silvery place in the fabric of the blackened sky - _full_ ; smudged with clouds, muffled like a smeared drawing - a child’s imagining of the dark they’re seldom allowed to see. Funny how children draw the Sun - like a sphere, hovering below the line of the sky. In the nothingness bordering the ground, that we people stretch up from - breaching possibility.

The jukebox could be playing anything right now, for all they cared. _Adrenaline_ , yet strangely grounded with the weight of drooping eyelids and heavy limbs, drips from the low ceiling, into their bloodstreams. Something like lightning flooded their veins and she couldn’t recall a wider smile. _Internal, naturally_.

But the neon lights of the diner bounced off his face and she thought that this was how he was supposed to look ( _what a strange thought,_ her head would whisper later) - _ethereal_ . Glowing with the lights belonging to the things he chases in the windowless basement - papers and files strewn over every surface - his own private bombsight. Not quite… _of here_. 

She was glad he _was_ here.

Of _course_ she was - he was her backup, and she his. _(That was a valid enough reason, right?)_

The food was cheap and greasy and she barely paid attention to the feel of it, against teeth that still tasted, somewhat, of metal - _blood._ Her stomach was ravenous and didn’t much care. He was draining a soda cup at the speed of an excited child, and she smiled.

It was the sort of place of ghost stories, in a way. This made her chuckle - perhaps, she thinks, that’s why they’re here. After all, why should his private preferences differ from his case-related ones?

The world outside could’ve been any colour, & she still wouldn’t’ve seen it through the smoky windows, painted with condensation - it was _freezing._ The little place shone out like a beacon of pinks and greens, the colours of psychedelic paintings. Psychedelic nightmares. Or dreams, anyway.

She wondered whether this was how turtles felt - maybe not turtles, but lizards, maybe mice - anything in a bright container - lit, like their mildly crappy feast, from above - never quite able to tell whether eyes much bigger than them are staring down.

Neither of them have spoken in a while. Neither of them, she finds, mind this very much. They smile occasionally across the table - they had been too hungry to stop for discussion. That would come later.

The table is sticky and she makes an effort not to let her food touch it - napkins are spread over the counter, boxes and cartons, too - fit for a whole load more of FBI agents than should, logistically, have been able to devour such a pile (provided, of course, that they were less famished). She slides the remainder of her chips across the table, and he raises an eyebrow at her in mock challenge. She rolls her eyes, slouching, puffing out her cheeks a little, assuring him she absolutely could _not_ manage to eat it all.

It takes a little more concentration than she was expecting to get up from the table and shuffle over, somewhere in the general direction of the ladies’ room - _God, when was the last time she had slept?_

\---

It’s a few minutes later when they both clamber out from their nest of fast-food-wreckage and through the door. She yawns louder than she expected. He laughs.

"What, you’re not tired?"

"Well, sure, but I got that extra half-pack of chips to keep me running for a bit"

He mock-tipped an invisible hat to her.

"I owe ya one"

She squints at nothing in particular and her tired head stumbles to form the words ‘that’s not … that’s not how that works’ before she’s cut off with another impressive yawn.

"Good thing you’re not driving, then"

She doesn’t argue.

Somehow (and she’s not quite sure how long this took, having faded in and out of consciousness the whole drive) they pull up outside a motel. Maybe it’s their motel. _Maybe_. They stay in so many she’s lost count. Besides, truth be told, she doesn’t really open her eyes wide enough to be able to tell, and she doesn’t have the energy to focus. On anything, really, but especially that - it helps that Mulder has hold of her elbow, gently reminding her how to actually walk like, well, y’know, _a human being_. 

She thinks he’s laughing a little, under his breath, when her eyelids droop and her feet decide that now would be just the right time to falter. Not nasty laughter, she knows that, even through a fuzzy, very much sleep-deprived mind.

And then they’re at the door. Maybe they’ve been staying here, because if he leaves to talk to a receptionist, she doesn’t register it. Although, in this state, that doesn’t really hold any validity. But they’re at the door. She’s not sure she has a key (she doesn’t, because he fishes around in his pockets for it), but the lock is fiddled with and she thinks to herself that she’s never felt so dead-on-her-feet. Maybe she mumbles it. She can’t tell.

She knows there’s a cut on her forehead that should be stinging, but her nerve endings are muffled and muted and her feet can barely feel the ground against them. He steadies her.

"Woah. watch it."

He nudges her towards the inside of the motel room, just to jog her memory of how doors work.

She turns and smiles at him, the tug on her cheeks just as exhausted as the rest of her. "Thanks Mulder - I really needed some food in me"

"Yeah I could see that" he smiles back.

It’s then that he realises he has no idea what the time could possibly be, and that judging by the depth of the shadows obscuring both their faces, there was no chance, now, of either of them getting a full night’s sleep.

It’s nothing, _he swears_ , but he hates the thought of drudging all the way to the next room over - of lying there in the cold and the pitch-black till it bleeds into dawn, no doubt unable to sleep. It’s nothing, but she opens the door wider. _A little_.

It’s nothing, _really_ , but she mumbles something about no point - something, maybe, about the time - he can’t quite make it out. It’s this gibberish that has them communicating - has them both practically falling through the doorway, into Scully’s room - has them collapsing against the ratty bedcovers and uncomfortable springs - has them slipping into a sleep well-deserved and well-needed.

It’s nothing, but his breath feels like a lullaby, or an ocean, and she breathes with it.

 _Fades_ with it.

It’s nothing, but he shivers a little less, with her there. (That’s just how body heat works - _nothing_ )

It’s nothing, but he may or may not keep his arm draped over her.

It’s nothing.

 _Really_.

**Author's Note:**

> um? is it ... ok? im relatively (by that i mean very) new to x-files but wow it does NOT take long to slip into mild obsession, huh? so, anyway, sorry if this is incoherent 😂  
> wrote it late, posting it late. maybe i'll regret this. ah well.


End file.
